


The Dance of the Red Death

by Nny



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-16
Updated: 2011-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-21 11:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She makes him hungry.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dance of the Red Death

_A dance in the desert, where nothing grows.  
A dance among dry, weathered bones  
and the wind that sings like locust wings  
through empty eyes and hollow grins. _

It's cold when the sun dies.

-

It's cold in the restaurant of an upscale hotel as he fastidiously wipes his mouth, watching diners pick disconsolately at

 _a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny_

the little they've been given.

The décor is spartan and the centerpiece a single white flower nodding on its thin, broken stem, and he listens to threadbare laughter and conversation informed by the scraps they've been fed, and he listens to music that's thinned by poor speakers and the exclusive (empty) room, and he listens to the echoes of her dance on the radio that whispers behind the bar.

His eyes dance.

And he dances in the eyes above hollowed cheeks and distended bellies in refugee camps, eyes that know her and watch her and will never see her but dance with her just the same.

She blows him a kiss and rains down fire and destroys his feast.

It's been too long.

-

There's laughter in her eyes as scarlet hair whips across her face, squinting against the dust kicked up by helicopter blades.

"Revenge?"

"Isn't it?" He arches a slim black eyebrow, looking thoroughly and ridiculously out of place in his perfectly spare suit.

She is in her element, army fatigues and olive vest and a rifle across her back, too many beautiful teeth bared in a grin. There are men around her, there are always men around her, but they are invisible save for the hunger in their eyes.

"You have stolen mine, before."

-

A long siege. Walls that were stronger than she'd believed and a blight on the crops.

Furs in front of a fireplace and the music of the moans of the dying as they danced together and the thin perfect agony of her teeth like swords and he whispered

 _Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men_

because he is not above irony, and her lips were a thread of scarlet that overflowed as she bit harder.

–

He carries her scars.

He doesn't have to.

-

She tosses her head.

"They weren't yours, not really. They weren't yours until He'd taken them."

He thinks of firelight on her skin and asks if it really mattered so much.

She looks down at immaculately slim black shoes that kick up dust as they move, and her smile is like knives.

"It mattered enough."

Somewhere nearby a small scuffle breaks out between two men over nothing in particular. Something about her inspires such things, and the tribute pleases her.

He touches her face with long, thin fingers.

She makes him hungry.

-

It's cold, in the desert, when the sun dies.

The light of burning oil wells dances on her skin.


End file.
